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Nov 25, 2008 11:50 am US/Central
CPS Asks Judge For DNA Of Polygamist Sect Baby
SAN ANGELO (AP) ―
Texas child welfare authorities have asked a judge to order a teenage member of a polygamist sect to allow them to examine her newborn and collect DNA to determine if the baby's father is an adult.
Child Protective Services said in a court filing that the girl gave birth to the baby June 14, less than two weeks after she and the other 438 children taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch were returned from foster care to their parents.
The girl is a minor and CPS believes she was married to an adult male in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when she was 14, said attorney John Dolezal in the Nov. 14 motion requesting a court order. He said efforts to get the girl to voluntarily allow CPS to examine the newborn and collect DNA have been rebuffed.
A hearing on the issue is scheduled before Texas District Judge Barbara Walther on Tuesday afternoon.
CPS collected DNA from all the children swept from the ranch in Eldorado in April, but the baby was born after the teen mother was returned to her parents.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled in late May that the state had overreached in placing all the children in foster care when it could show no more than a handful of teenage girls had been abused. The children were returned in early June, and only one, a teenage girl whose mother wouldn't cooperate with child welfare authorities, has been returned to foster care.
All but 36 of the children's cases have been dropped from court oversight.
Child welfare authorities went to the YFZ Ranch after a domestic abuse hot line took several calls from someone claiming to be an underaged abused mother. Those calls are being investigated as a hoax.
Authorities confiscated thousands of church documents and family photographs in the weeklong raid of the ranch and 12 FLDS men have now been indicted on charges related to underage marriages and bigamy.
In Texas, someone under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult.
The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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